Austin Voters Reject Amendment Allowing Housing Discrimination
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The voters of Austin Saturday overwhelmingly rejected a proposal that would have made the Texas capital the first city in the nation to legalize housing discrimination on the basis of sexual orientation. The proposed amendment to the city’s Fair Housing Ordinance was defeated almost 2 to 1 by the voters of this central Texas community, which has a reputation for tolerating diverse life styles. In an unusually high turnout, 29 percent of this city’s 199,390 registered voters participated despite bitterly cold temperatures. The final tally was 36,239 against the proposal and 20,997 in favor of it. ‘Open-Minded, Fair People The referendum, which many Austin residents complained was ”unnecessary,” ‘’stupid” and ”a waste of taxpayers’ money,” proved ”what we’ve always said about the makeup of Austin, that it is made up of a majority of very open-minded, fair people,” said Robb Southerland, an Austin businessman who led the Citizens for a United Austin, a coalition of homosexuals, blacks, Hispanic Americans and labor and religious leaders who opposed the amendment. ”And Austin is not the kind of town that is made up of the kind of people that want the right to discriminate against someone else, especially as it pertains to the basic right of housing,” he said. ”If anyone wants to try to discriminate against anyone else, Austin, Tex., is not the place to try it.” The referendum was forced by the Austin Citizens for Decency, a conservative, anti-homosexual organization that was formed last August when the Austin City Council refused to vote on a Fair Housing Ordinance that included a provision protecting the housing rights of homosexuals. The Austin Citizens for Decency took to the streets to ”Walk a Blo ck for Dec ency” and collected 27,000 signatures on a petition to place their v ersion of the housing ordinance before the voters. Concerned About ‘Moral Climate’ That version would have allowed landlords t he ”moral discretion” to refuse housing to anyone on the basis of ‘ ’sexual orientation.” Dr. Steven Hotze, the chairman of the Austin Citizens for Decency, said he was ”concerned about the moral clima te of this city,” adding, ”We organized to protect our childre n.” He said his group wanted to keep Austin from becoming another S an Francisco, referring to that city’s sizable and politically active homosexual population. The initial efforts of the Austin Citizens for Decency were focused on protecting the right of property owners to choose the tenants of their property. But as the vote drew nearer, Dr. Hotze conceded: ”The primary concern is not property rights. It is whether our City Council has the right to give public sanction and public respectablity to homosexuals by making them a minority group with rights and privileges that can be protected. ”It is totally improper for our City Council to grant these things to a group of people who are morally wrong, who lead a deviant, perverted lifestyle. It flies in the face of traditional family values, community standards and community respectability.” Mr. Southerland disagreed with Dr. Hotze’s reasoning. ”This is not a purely homosexual issue,” he said. ”It concerns all of us. Everyone has a sexual orientation. We don’t believe in the legalized discrimination of one of people’s most basic rights - housing.” More : query.nytimes.com |